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For some reason or another you may decide to remove the Windows 8 Media Center Pack from your computer. However, since the Windows 8 Media Center Pack has changed your product key, the normal means of removing it is to do a full reinstall of Windows 8 Pro.

This tutorial will show you how to remove the added Windows 8 Media Center Pack to go back to just Windows 8 Pro without Media Center while not losing your settings, files, or apps.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

Note

You will need to have the Windows 8 Pro installation media (either a DVD or the .ISO) along with your old Windows 8 Pro product key to be able to do this tutorial.

The tutorial below can help show you how to download the Windows 8 .ISO file.

12. When finished, your Windows 8 Pro should be completely identical to how it was before, except it will no longer have Windows Media Center. Your old installation will have moved to a folder called Windows.old, so follow the tutorial below to remove it if you want to free up that space.

I upgraded two machines using two different emails (their both linked Hotmail accounts,) Yet MS still sent the same product key for both media center installs. The first machine is fine (one that I actually use media center, it's a htpc.) Although the second machine is looking for a product key, and is on a machine that I could care less if it really had media center or not (using is as a home server.) Therefore instead of dealing with MS I just want to uninstall the media center upgrade.

I found this tutorial (thank you) and would like to use it, although the backup DVD that I ordered hasn't arrived yet. Would you happen to know where I could get a copy of the ISO image?

The problem I have is that I mirrored two drives on the second machine and moved over almost an half a terabyte of data before deciding to grab the media center upgrade. That was a mistake, although if this works you'll save me the headache of starting all over.

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